some cardboard boxes to
paste together, the only employment that did not tire her thin weak
hands. So childish had she remained that one would have taken her for a
young girl suddenly arrested in her growth. Yet her slender fingers were
skilful, and she contrived to earn some two francs a day in making the
little boxes. And as she suffered greatly at her parents' home, tortured
by her brutal surroundings there, and robbed of her earnings week by
week, her dream was to secure a home of her own, to find a little money
that would enable her to install herself in a room where she might
live in peace and quietness. It had occurred to Mathieu to give her
a pleasant surprise some day by supplying her with the small sum she
needed.

"Where are you running so fast?" he gayly asked her.

The meeting seemed to take her aback, and she answered in an evasive,
embarrassed way: "I am going to the Rue de Miromesnil for a call I have
to make."

Noticing his kindly air, however, she soon told him the truth. Her
sister, that poor creature Norine, had just given birth to another
child, her third, at Madame Bourdieu's establishment. A gentleman who
had been protecting her had cast her adrift, and she had been obliged
to sell her few sticks of furniture in order to get together a couple of
hundred francs, and thus secure admittance to Madame Bourdieu's house,
for the mere idea of having to go to a hospital terrified her. Whenever
she might be able to get about again, however, she would find herself
in the streets, with the task of beginning life anew at one-and-thirty
years of age.

"She never behaved unkindly to me," resumed Cecile. "I pity her with all
my heart, and I have been to see her. I am taking her a little chocolate
now. Ah! if you only saw her little boy! he is a perfect love!"

The poor girl's eyes shone, and her thin, pale face became radiant with
a smile. The instinct of maternity remained keen within her, though she
could never be a mother.

"What a pity it is," she continued, "that Norine is so obstinately
determined on getting rid of the baby, just as she got rid of the
others. This little fellow, it's true, cries so much that she has had to
give him the breast. But it's only for the time being; she says that she
can't see him starve while he remains near her. But it quite upsets
me to think that one can get rid of one's children; I had an idea of
arranging things very differently. You know that I want to leave my
p